This invention relates to video systems and, more particularly, to a system for colorizing monochrome video frames.
There are a number of different types of existing equipment for colorizing monochrome video. One use of such equipment is for producing colorized versions of existing monochrome film. In one type of system the film is viewed with a video camera to obtain an electronic video signal which can then be stored and processed electronically to add colors to specified regions of each frame. Some electronic colorizing systems involve the use of so-called "pseudocolorizers", which operate, in the manner of an electronic look-up table, to assign a particular color to the luminance value that is sensed at each elemental position or pixel of a monochrome frame. Systems also exist in which an operator can specify, such as via a computer terminal, particular colors that are to be assigned to specified regions of a frame being colorized. These systems generally tend to be complex and expensive, although most such systems do not provide the operator with adequate flexibility while performing the colorization tasks.
The cost of colorizing is directly related to the time that it takes to color each frame, so it would be highly advantageous to have a system that was itself not unduly expensive, and also facilitated the rapid production of colorized video frames.
The following U.S. patents disclose techniques for colorization of monochrome pictures, or related techniques: U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,706,841, 3,710,011, 3,761,607, 3,784,736, 3,943,561, 3,975,762, 3,972,067, 4,025,946 and 4,149,185.
The prior art systems known to applicant suffer from one or more of the following disadvantages: (1) slow processing speed, with each frame to be colorized requiring many minutes or hours, resulting in unduly high processing costs; (2) lack of operator convenience and flexibility that is needed to facilitate obtainment of quality colorized video; (3) undue complexity and/or cost of the colorizing system itself.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome these disadvantages of prior art video colorizing systems.